In the sixth and final Research Unplugged discussion event of the fall season, Distinguished Professor and Co-Director of Penn State's Media Effects Research Laboratory S. Shyam Sundar led a lively discussion on the cultural implications of social media in his talk, titled "Tweeting, Digging and Blogging: Communication in the Age of Interactivity."

The popular idea is that brainwashing techniques can completely alter a person's opinions, while he or she is powerless to stop the conversion," he says. "But such techniques have never actually been found to exist," says Roger Finke, professor of sociology and religious studies at Penn State.

At the end of August, one can't help but notice those perennial signs of the changing seasons: the leaves begin to turn, the kids return to school, and the summer reality television shows—Jon & Kate Plus 8, America's Got Talent, and Whale Wars—give way to the fall

A young woman runs alone through a shadowy forest, frantically glancing over her shoulder. No matter how fast she runs, her pursuer keeps getting closer and closer. Suddenly she trips! In an instant, her attacker looms over her, silhouetted as he raises a bloody axe, wet and glinting in the moonlight. The camera zooms in on our heroine's terrified face as she lets out a piercing scream...

Since their conception in the late 1970s, video games have steadily increased in popularity. In 2004, the video-game industry raked in 10 billion dollars worldwide, generating more revenues than Hollywood. Polls indicate that today's children play anywhere from 9 to 20 hours of video games per week.

Parents may fret over these figures, but Edward Downs believes that video games can be a positive experience for kids, though pitfalls do exist.

The evil albino has been a stock Hollywood character for decades. Foul Play, End of Days, The Matrix Reloaded, and Cold Mountain are but a few examples of recent films with deranged or sadistic albino antagonists. Now, in The Da Vinci Code, he's baaaaack—in the person of Silas, a self-flagellating assassin-monk—and some members of the albino community are upset.

Professor of communications Mary Beth Oliver—host of today's Research Unplugged conversation—took a moment to think before answering a question from an audience member in a standing-room-only crowd. The issue before her: How do we prevent young people from absorbing racist messages from the media?

Ndidi Moses touches the cover of Cosmopolitan. The woman under the title is thin and white, with strawberry-blonde hair and azure eyes. She wears a come-hither look and a white lace dress that leaves her torso almost bare. "That dress is beautiful," Moses says, running her fingers across the page. "You couldn't wear it out, but for a fashion show . . . I wonder if that's her real body."

Shyam Sundar Sethuraman, director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State, uses electrodes to monitor people's reactions to everything from download speed on the Internet to the size of a television screen to how seating affects enjoyment in a movie theater.

"Essentially, what we do is look at people's reactions to various stimuli," Sundar says. These stimuli include television, cable, Internet, laserdisc, and video sources.